Flower King of Flies

So that was how I met the swarm. Young and terrified. I'm no longer young.

But I'm not the only one hunting it. There's also Mouser and Z. "Z for Zap," she says. "Zaps bugs dead." Mouser calls her Zed.

I asked Z if she could write her own story about her first encounter. She asked me why and I told that it was different then mine and I thought people ought to know how many different ways the swarm can look and act. "So write it yourself," she said.

"But it's your story," I said. "You should write it."

She grumbled and grabbed a beer, but agreed to write something.

Hey, it's Z. Mal thinks I need to write this myself, so what the fuck, right?

I met the swarm when I was eighteen. The night of graduation, can you believe it? It was a full post-grad party, the one last big fling before college, and I was there. I wasn't the most popular kid, but I was fucking there and I was determined to have fun. Which meant a whole lot of drinking.

I remember seeing him in the center of the party. He was good looking, charismatic. I can't remember much about his face, but I remember people flocked around him like flies. He must have told me his name, but I don't remember that either. I just call him the Flower King of Flies.

I remember leaving with him, kissing him. I remember touching his back, holding it as I kissed him. Then I remember feeling sick, puking out your stomach lining sick. He looked at me and I saw something in his eyes. And then my vision blurred and I saw not just one pair of eyes, but two - one that looked regular, normal, and another pair where the eyes were huge compound eyes, black and shiny like mirrors. He blinked and the other pair of eyes vanished, but I knew they were still there. Beneath the normal eyes.

He smiled and there were maggots in his teeth. His tongue was black and chitinous and I felt the bile rising in my throat.

I had a pen that I had been using to sign yearbooks. Somehow, I still had it in my pocket even during the party. I thank god for that pen. When he grabbed me, when he lunged with his black tongue, I thrust that pen into his fucking throat.

It didn't kill him of course. He laughed through the hole, a rasping, wet sound. But it gave me enough time to run. To get away from him.

I don't know how I was able to see him for what he was. I don't know how I was able to even escape him. Perhaps he let me go. Perhaps I was a fish he caught, but decided to throw back. I hesitate to even imagine what would have happened if I hadn't escaped, if I had gone with him. Imagination's a fucking bitch, right?

Was that good enough for you, Mal?

Bedbugs

Let me tell you about bedbugs. Bedbugs are these small little insects that like to drink blood. And not just any blood - most bedbugs drink human blood. They are called 'bedbugs' because that's where you will usually find them, in beds where they can wait for people to lay down and then feed on them as they sleep.

When I was little, my mom used to tuck me in at bedtime and say, "Good night, sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite." I thought bedbugs were imaginary creatures, like dragons and unicorns. I didn't think they were actually real. I thought it was just a warning - go to sleep or the bedbugs will get you.

But I didn't. I used to stay up and make a tent with my comforter and read comics by flashlight. I never wanted to go to sleep - I wanted to stay up all night long.

Needless to say, my sleep habits suffered and I ended up falling asleep a lot in school. My teacher told my mom and my mom confiscated my flashlight. "Now go to sleep," she said. "I don't want to walk in here and see you awake."

But I couldn't sleep. Without the flashlight, the darkness was suddenly more menacing. I didn't have anything to fight it with. I couldn't sleep for fear the dark would consume me. So I got up and I walked to my parents' bedroom to retrieve my flashlight.

It was on the dresser and as I picked it up, I heard a sound. I didn't want to turn on the flashlight, because then my mom would know I had taken it, so I tried to see what was making the noise in the dark. It was a scratching noise, a scritch scritch. Finally, I couldn't stand the suspense anymore and turned on my flashlight and pointed it at my parents' bed.

There was nothing wrong. Both of my parents were asleep, the covers pulled up to their shoulders. I could still hear the scratching sound coming from somewhere, though, so I inched closer to the bed and that's when I noticed it. The covers appeared to be moving in some places.

Closer and closer I stepped until I was as close as I could get to the bed without getting on it. The covers seemed to ripple. I turned my flashlight from the unusual motions of the covers to illuminate my mom and dad.

My mom's mouth was open and as I watched, frozen with a mixture of curiosity and fear, I saw a tiny bug crawl from it.

I grasped and pulled the covers away from my parents, revealing the mass of bedbugs feeding on them. The skin I saw was puckered and white, drained of all blood. Both of my parents looked emaciated, like they hadn't eaten in weeks. They were quite clearly dead.

I turned and ran, the flashlight forgotten. My room provided no shelter, so I ended up running outside. They found me the next day walking beside the freeway in my pajamas. My parents cause of death was declared as 'hypovolemic shock.' That means they died from loss of blood. Nobody knew how they lost blood though and I certainly wasn't talking.

After all, I thought it was my fault. I thought it was a warning that I disobeyed:

Good night, sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite.

The Bug Bible

It all comes down to bugs.

Did you know that the word 'bug' didn't mean insect until the 1600s? Before that, the word bug or 'bugge' meant something that was frightening or terrifying.

In 1535, a bible was even produced where Psalm 91 is written: Thou shall not nede to be afrayed for eny bugges by night. Usually, translations have it as 'terror by night.' It's where we get the term night terrors.

If you go back farther, you can even connect the word 'bug' to 'bogey' and the bogey-man. In Welsh, the word bwg meant a ghost or goblin, while it's root bwgwl meant 'threat' or 'fear,' often meaning a supernatural being.

Mouser said I shouldn't have made this blog. He thinks it's a waste of time. But I think the more people know about what's happening, the better. Because we're fighting a losing battle, waging a war against an enemy that is everywhere.

The Bug Bible said that we shouldn't be afraid of bugs by night, but we are. That's why we named them 'bugs' - we named them after terrors and goblins and even the bogeyman. But the noises you hear at night, under your bed, in your closet, all have a reasonable explanation.

It all comes down to bugs.